India, Pakistan fail to ink pact on new visa regime

With Pakistan insisting on sorting issues related to the new liberalised visa regime between the India and Pakistan at political level, the pact will not signed at the ongoing home secretary-level talks in Islamabad.

With Pakistan insisting on sorting issues related to the new liberalised visa regime between the India and Pakistan at political level, the pact will not signed at the ongoing home secretary-level talks in Islamabad.

An Indian delegation led by home secretary RK Singh is in Islamabad for talks with Pakistan's interior secretary Khwaja Siddique Akbar.

Pakistan had decided in principle to sign the new visa regime with India but the pact will not be signed during the current round of talks, Pakistan interior minister Rahman Malik said in Islamabad. In New Delhi, foreign secretary Ranjan Mathai said India had been prepared ready to sign the pact.

Malik did not give details on when the pact will be inked and stressed that the pact involves important issues and should be finalised at the political level.

Islamabad wants the agreement to be signed at ministerial level. In response to a question, Malik said India’s home minister P Chidambaram was welcome to visit Pakistan to sign the visa agreement.

Talking about Friday’s meeting, Malik said both sides had exchanged dossiers on terrorism-related issues and that Pakistan had received additional evidence from India against Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed. But , he said Pakistan could not act on "hearsay" and that they would examine the evidence against Saeed.

Malik said the two sides had also discussed the issue of India's alleged interference in Pakistan's Balochistan province and Akbar had been directed to provide "evidence" in this regard to his Indian counterpart.

Replying to a question on the 33-year prison term given to Pakistani doctor Shakeel Afridi for aiding the CIA track Osama bin Laden, Malik said the court had declared Afridi a "traitor" and there was nothing the Pakistan government could do in this regard.